Sunday 1 July 2007

The Unity Fallacy

Unity is an issue that is brought to the fore in some conversations in masjids, campuses and the like, but does anyone actually understand unity as a concept.

The word unity means "The combination or arrangement of parts into a whole" amongst other meanings. The message is simple they want to see a unification of Muslims into one body, one organisation. On the outside this seems reasonable until you learn the manner in which the want to do this.

They want to drop/leave whatever causes difference this includes all the juridical schools, whatever they may be. You see to drop what gives you certainty that your prayer is correct is insanity. They also want to drop any school of theological belief this also is a disaster firm belief can only be based upon what you know if you cannot defend your faith, do actually know your faith?

They also say that becoming more political minded will help. How can that be? What does this have to do with religion, this is not what the normal person should be concerned with. They take a minor issue and turn it into a mega issue, much like this group.
The hide under these pretexts and don't allow people to think beyond this, they have their spoon fed knowledge and that's all you should need.

Without knowledge any movement is just slogans, how can we leave the knowledge of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and think that we will be successful.

This is really just a slogan, like many groups who say Islam is the solution but they don't know what the solution is. They have cut themselves from knowledge and think this is way forward, this is the way backward.

To be fair the group has made various attempts to reach out to others through the form of outreach and other community activities.

Many of the companions had major disagreements about issue but the difference here is that they did not let there difference come between them. For example did what the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) saw in the night journey. Aisha and Ibn Abbas disagreed but this did not cause a split.

Juridical schools or theological schools do not cause splits, people who take them too seriously cause problems. Like not praying is someone masjid because they follow a different school to you. Otherwise historically this was similar to friendly banter of siblings and it also shows the health of these schools.

Rather than call for unity in and amongst the majority they call from outside by forming another group. This causes a slip already then how can this be unity if you are causing a split?

If I am going to criticise shouldn't I then come forward with a solution, how is unity attained? Unity is attained by accepting peoples opinions as long as they do not take someone out the fold of Islam. We come together work together and help each other. As it stands we dislike each other and do our best to undermine each other, whether we are part of this group or not. Unity is built into the religion because no one can issue an edict that breaks unity. Unity is working together for a common goal not unifying opinions into one that's something else.

Unity is built in the religion and that's the real problem, its already there as a concept, we just need to practice it.

Have you ever looked at your hand? Your fingers are not all the same length, it works better that way.